Problem setting up Astra 2 with motorised camper dish

davidod1

Hi Folks,

I am badly in need of some help trying in to resolve an issue that I having with the motorised satellite dish system on my camper.

Normally when you power up the dish it would rise from parked position and look for the last chosen satellite; almost always Astra 2 (28.2). The typical elevation would leave the dish looking at about 90 degrees from the horizontal. It would search; altering the elevation by a small amount for a number of sweeps, and if all is well it would lock and then fine tune the result.

Out of the blue; on startup; the dish started to search when the dish was only about 30 degrees up. Naturally, there was nothing there to be found. If
I changed to search for a different satellite then it would rise to the expected elevation and do a search.

I decided to delete Astra 2 from the list of satellites and then reinstall it. It solved the problem of the dish only rising to 30 degrees, but although I am able manually control the dish and find Astra 2, and watch the programs, and save them, it will not automatically find Astra 2 again from a fresh start.

I have attached some photos of the settings that I have for Astra 2 in the hope that someone may see what I am doing wrong.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

STB.

What is the box you are using.


Why doesn't the dish park at the last used satellite.


I presume the camper is constantly on the move ?


Pictures of dish and HH motor ?

davidod1

Thanks STB.

The box is a French make and going back to 2008. It was supplied with the camper. See three attached photos.

When you shut down the box the dish returns to the flat parking position. So therefore at every restart, it will need to sweep for a signal. The It will always go back to the last viewed satellite; signal permitting of course. If it can not lock on to that signal it will return to the parked travelling position.

Unfortunately, there is no support for the system due to age. I'm not sure if there would be compatibility issues with the dish if the box has issues. It's an expensive business to replace the whole system. I think I would have to learn to live with it as a manual system.

I do feel though that it may be possible that I have not set up something correctly and that therefor the system is searching for incorrect information.

Thnaks for the help.

STB.

I see the box itself is so old that you cannot flash new firmware to it via USB (as would be normal). It has a serial port for this and you would need a laptop and a null modem cable to reflash firmware & channel lists (I couldn't see any online for that model)

Well you could try and restore it to default settings, but I don't know what the default settings would contain but I would hope they would have the basic transponders in the database. Before you do that...

From looking at the settings in one of the pictures you posted (below). The Satellite is labelled as "30" - is 30 in your sat list attributed to Astra 28E ? The LNB type being "Universal LNB" is what caught my attention.

If so fine. Check another satellite position say 13E. In the settings for 13E are the LNB settings for LNB type also "Universal LNB" ?

Go to 13E and see does it display the italian station RAI - its a FTA channel on 11804 V.

Switch off the box as you normally would and restart it (does it return to RAI ?). If so then it proves the box is fine as it is returning to last watched channel and your satellite settings for 28.2E that is not returning to last watched is incorrect.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=485313&d=1563132655

pegasuspub

Hi don't know if this may help you . I did a small bit of work to one on a camper a few years ago
I think it was made by a company called oyster and was fitted in the uk
when I took off the cover at the base of the dish
I found that two bolts that went through an arm on the bottom of the dish had worked loose
these bolts were being driven by the motor that raised and lowered the dish
it seemed to me that there was just enough grip on those bolts to partially lift the dish but not enough to do it properly
hope this is of some use

davidod1

STB. wrote: »

From looking at the settings in one of the pictures you posted (below). The Satellite is labelled as "30" - is 30 in your sat list attributed to Astra 28E ? The LNB type being "Universal LNB" is what caught my attention.

Check another satellite position say 13E. In the settings for 13E are the LNB settings for LNB type also "Universal LNB

As you are aware the unit is French. Astra 2 was not listed so I needed to enter the details manually. The settings for a number of satellites are preinstalled. The free spots after those get numbered sequentially; starting at 30. I'm assuming the LNB is a Universal. All the other preinstalled details refer to a Unversal LNB.

I will check those suggestions and get back to you on that.

davidod1

Thanks for that suggestion pegaguspub.

The dish was rising to full elevation for satellites other than Astra 2. That is why I deleted Astra 2 from the list. However, now I'm having a different problem.

davidod1

STB. wrote: »

Well you could try and restore it to default settings, but I don't know what the default settings would contain but I would hope they would have the basic transponders in the database. Before you do that...

I do think that it comes with all the preinstalled data, and I was going to take a chance on doing a factory reset, but I coudn't find any codes to make that happen. I tried a number of random codes on the remote, but nothing worked.

P.S.
Due to family bereavement, it may be a couple of days before I get to check your other suggestions and come back with the results.

davidod1

STB. wrote: »

Go to 13E and see does it display the italian station RAI - its a FTA channel on 11804 V.

Switch off the box as you normally would and restart it (does it return to RAI ?). If so then it proves the box is fine as it is returning to last watched channel and your satellite settings for 28.2E that is not returning to last watched is incorrect.

I have tried a couple of the other registered satellites, but the system has not been able to locate them. This includes Astra 19E which I used to be able to switch to. It may be that some of the settings have changed and the data is now so old and there is no method of updating. I couldn't find any of them manually either.

Either way it looks like a change of box is the way to go. I have been in contact with Antarion and they are saying that subject to a phot ID of the rear of the box a CP 110 (https://www.shopevasion.fr/positionneur-antarion-cp-110-c2x22691517) should be a substitute. I have sent a photo and am awaiting a response.

davidod1

An update to the story so far.

I purchased a CP110. Now, this is a box that sits between the old Controller/Reciever and the motorised dish. Effectively this box becomes the new controller and the 'loop-out' goes to the 'loop-in' in the old receiver. They supplied cables to provide this connection as the new box had a different set of connectors. The other thing about CP110 is that it will only find one satellite as per the data that is currently loaded. To change to another satellite you need to have the data on a USB flash drive and plug that in at start-up. The data loads and following a re-start it should find the programmed satellite.

So am I sorted. No. Nothing worked. It didn't find any satellites. The bottom line is that I am no further on but down the cost of this new unit. I am awaiting further analysis from the supplier.

A dealer who doesn't install motorised satellite dishes has told me that this business is particularly troublesome as the various parameters keep changing for the satellites and it is constantly necessary to get updates from the manufacturers and some stage they will just stop producing these for the older systems and at that time you have a very expensive but totally useless piece of kit on your roof. I don't know if this true, but I would like to hear some comments.